Dewey Decimal System


Name of book: My Pet Hamster
Author: Nigel Taylor
Dewey no.: 636.93233 TAY

Explanation of the above Dewey Number:

636 Looking after animals

  • .9 Other Mammals
    • 3233 Hamster
      • TAY First 3 letters of the author's last name


Locating a Book on the Shelves
636.93233 - Call number is located on the spine of a book
TAY

Once you have identified the base number (636), then you need to identify the correct decimal location. Call numbers containing .450 would precede call numbers containing .6
Hint: put zeros at the end of the decimal number until each has the same number of decimal places: .450 comes before .600

Following are call numbers arranged in the order that they would be found on the shelves:

636.04
636.3
636.450
636.5984
636.973
.0400
.3000
(.4500)
(.5984)
(.9730

If more than one book has been assigned the same call number, those books are then arranged on the shelf in alphabetical order by the author's last name (TAY in the example above).

The following call numbers are arranged in the correct order:

636.3 636.3 636.3 636.3 636.3
AGE CAR FOR KNO OLD


From: Wamego High School's Library Media Center, http://www.usd320.k12.ks.us/whs/lmc/Dewey.html#Finding%20Books%20on%20the%20Shelves%20Using%20the%20Dewey

Created by A. Bemis 2/20/2010